Little Specs of White
by MurderousQueen
Summary: Dean is bullied because he's "different", Castiel is there to show him that's he's just as normal as everyone else. The two friends grow up together and stay friends even when they both get married - to different people.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

Little specs of white fall to the ground

There's pain in the silence you've somehow found

You do it for the one you love but wont tell

God only knows this wont end well


	2. Chapter 2: Sixth Grade

There were little specs of white snow floating in through the open window in the bathroom of the elementary school boy's bathroom.

There were little specs of red on the sink Castiel Novak went to wash his hands at after getting peanut butter all over his fingers at lunch.

Castiel was a sixth grader, turning twelve this coming Christmas, and off to middle school next September. And for a sixth grader it was pretty jarring to see something that looked a lot like blood on a sink in a bathroom. Suddenly nervous, he looked around him, but saw he was alone except for one occupied stall where the door was closed.

Maybe … it wasn't blood. Maybe it was just … jam or something.

He moved to the next sink to wash his hands and he dried them with paper from one of the stalls. He didn't like using the hand dryers, they made a lot of noise and blew too hard, so using paper was much easier. He tossed it into the toilet and flushed, turning to leave the stall when he heard a sound from the next one.

From the occupied stall, Castiel heard the sound of sniffling that usually accompanied crying. And because Castiel was a friendly boy, he decided to knock lightly on the door.

'Go away,' came the stuffy reply.

Castiel frowned. His first instinct was to follow the order, but the boy inside sounded hurt. And there was blood on the sink. Not jam.

Castiel reached into his pocket and pulled out a Hershey's chocolate bar and slid it under the stall. He figured, whoever was in there was upset and possibly hurt, and chocolate had always been a peace offering in his family. His father always gave him and his brothers and his sister chocolate the day after a fight.

There was a shuffling noise and the door opened.

'You dropped your chocolate bar,' said a green-eyed boy with freckles on his face and blood around his nose, dried now and clearly unevenly dabbed away by a tissue.

'You can have it,' Castiel offered. 'I had a sandwich already so I don't need it.'

They boy looked familiar. He was the quiet boy who always sat alone at lunch, or sometimes with another girl in their grade who was generally pretty quiet too, when she wasn't sneaking around with a group who seemed to worship her. The two of them always sat at the back of class. Castiel didn't know his name.

'Thanks,' said the boy. 'Are you sure? I don't want to take something you might not want to give away.'

'I got four of them this week,' Castiel shrugged. 'They're all from my dad. He gives them to us when he feels guilty about something so it's okay. Take it. Did you get a nose bleed? My brother gets nose bleeds a lot and he always has to tilt his head back and pinch his nose.'

'No,' the boy lied. 'I didn't get a nose bleed.'

Castiel frowned. The blood on his nostrils was obvious. And the bruise on his face …

'Did someone hit you?' Castiel asked.

The boy looked away. Castiel looked down, feeling upset that he'd upset this boy.

'They hurt me because I'm different,' the boy said quietly. 'I don't want to be different. It's not _fair_.'

'Do you want me to … to get someone?'

'No,' the boy replied quickly. 'They don't help. They never help.'

'What's your name?' Castiel asked.

'Dean.'

'Hello, Dean,' Castiel replied, reaching his hand out towards the boy with the green eyes and the freckles and the bloody nose and the bruise. 'I'm Castiel.'

'Hi, Castiel.'

Dean shook his hand. A handshake was an oddly mature thing to do.

'You can call me Cas if you want. My brothers do. My parents do. Everyone I know does.'

'Okay … hey, Cas.'

'Hi,' Castiel smiled. 'Do you want help with your nose? My brother usually wets some tissue paper and dabs it until it's clean. Or if you want I could go find some ice if it hurts.'

'I'm okay,' Dean replied shakily, stepping out into the main part of the bathroom. 'I'm used to it. It happens a lot. Maybe you shouldn't talk to me or it will happen to you too.'

'I don't care,' Castiel decided.

'But I'm _weird_.'

'You seem normal to me.'

'You don't understand,' Dean said desperately, 'I like _boys_ the way I'm supposed to like _girls_ but I like girls too and no one cares. They only care that I like boys. There's something _wrong_ with me. Go away before something happens to you for being around me.'

Castiel stared at him and blinked a few times. Dean flinched, holding up one hand in front of his face automatically.

'My dad likes boys,' said Cas.

'What?'

'My mom yells at him a lot because she doesn't want to have to break up. But my dad likes boys and he's … okay.'

Dean slowly lowered his hand.

'You're not going to hit me?'

'No.'

'You're not afraid I'm going to do something weird to you?'

'No.'

Dean looked around him again as if he didn't know what to do and then handed Castiel the chocolate bar he'd given him.

'Can you hold this while I clean my nose? Please?'

Castiel nodded and took the bar back. He stood in silence while Dean got some tissue and wet it for his nose, wincing in the mirror. Cas had never met any boy who liked boys before apart from his dad, but his dad wasn't the best example to give to Dean because sometimes his dad drank a lot of alcohol and got angry. But then he got nice again and gave them all chocolate and gave their mom flowers and everything was okay again for a few days.

Castiel handed the bar back when Dean was blood-free and Dean took it from him and opened it.

'You don't want to leave first?' Castiel asked, looking towards the door.

'I can't leave,' said Dean, 'or they'll hurt me again.'

'But why?'

'Because there's something wrong with me.'

'No there's not.'

'Yes there is.'

' _I_ don't think so.'

'They do,' Dean aid desperately, 'and my dad does.'

'Well I _don't_. But you can stay in here if you want. I'll stay with you if you like. My friend and I aren't talking anymore so I have no one to play with outside anyway.'

'Come in the stall,' Dean asked. 'In case they come in here.'

Dean backed into his stall and Castiel followed him. He closed the door behind them and locked it and then sat on the ground with his legs crossed while Dean sat on the closed toilet lid and continued opening the bar Cas had given him and then he broke it in half and offered Cas some. Castiel smiled and took it without question.

'Do you have any friends?' Cas asked blatantly.

'One,' Dean nodded, speaking with his mouth full. 'Her name is Charlie. She likes girls but she doesn't get beat up because she has a lot of good video games and there's a bunch of people who always want to play them. And my brother is my friend too but he's four years younger than I am and he has his own friends in his grade.'

'I'll be your friend,' Castiel offered.

'But … why?'

'Because I like you,' he decided.

'I like you too,' Dean said quietly. 'But not … like that.'

'I know.'

'How do you know?'

'Because you're nice and there's nothing wrong with you.'

Dean smiled, very small. When Cas smiled boldly back, Dean's smile got bigger and some more confidence leaked into it.

'So how old are you?' Dean asked.

' _Almost_ twelve,' Castiel said, stressing the almost. 'On Christmas Eve. What about you?'

'January twenty fourth and then I'm twelve too,' Dean said, blinking. 'You're just a month older than me.'

'I like being older than people,' said Cas. 'I have three older brothers. But I have a younger brother and a younger sister too. My brother is four years younger like yours. His name is Samandriel but we call him Alfie because that's his middle name.'

'Samandriel is a weird name.'

'My mom is religious. We're all named after angels. I think that's kinda stupid but I don't mind.'

'I'm named after my mom's mom,' Dean admitted.

'There's a girl called Dean?'

'No, Deanna. And my brother is called Sam after her dad Samuel. Except he's not Samuel, he's just Sam. He hates it when I call him Samuel to tease him. It's always really funny.'

'Is he the really small one with the hair like …'

Castiel mimicked with his hands the way Sam's hair fell around his forehead. Dean nodded eagerly.

'Yeah, that's him!'

'I saw him and my brother playing together once!' Castiel exclaimed. 'Our brothers are friends and now we're friends too.'

'Awesome,' said Dean, grinning now, far happier than he had been when they'd met just minutes ago.

Dean had a feeling things were going to get a little better, and he wasn't wrong about that.

Dean and Castiel spent the rest of their break in the stall, learning about each other and exploring their common interests, and in class Castiel decided he want to sit in the empty seat on the other side of Dean that wasn't occupied by Charlie, the girl who liked girls. Unfortunately when he actually did that their teacher made him move back to his usual seat, but at least he tried.

The boys walked out of school together when the day ended, Castiel headed to the bus stop and Dean to meet Sam at the point where their mom picked them up.

'Hey, Sammy,' Dean grinned down at his little brother when he saw Sam was already there. 'Good day?' he asked.

'I learned a lot of stuff!' Sam said eagerly. 'And we did art today and I painted a ladybug! I used black buttons and stuck them on as the spots!'

'Do you have it now?' Dean asked.

'No, it's drying in the art room. But I can take it home tomorrow!'

'I bet mom will pin it on the fridge,' Dean said proudly.

Despite his young age, Dean was very protective of his little brother. He'd been protective of him since before he'd been born; despite being so young when that happened, he always made sure to be protective of the baby in his mommy's tummy, and then of the baby when he was born, and then of Sam as he grew up. And with his protectiveness came a multitude of other feelings; pride being one of them.

'I hope so,' Sam smiled, as proud of himself as Dean was proud of him. 'What happened to your face? Did you get beat up again?'

Dean being beat up was not a new thing. It was a common occurrence, except usually no one paid attention to the crying boy in the bathroom stall.

'Yes,' Dean replied. His reply was much less ashamed than usual. 'And I met a boy in the bathroom and he gave me a chocolate bar and he was nice to me and we talked and he knows I like boys but he _likes_ me! And his brother is your friend Alfie. Look, there's mom.'

The boys proceeded forward towards the car; a '67 Chevy Impala, belonging to their dad, but it was their family car too and their mom drove it when she needed to run errands or when she picked up the kids from school. They climbed in the back seat together, and Sam hugged Dean's arm.

'I'm glad you found someone nice,' Sam said proudly, proud of Dean now and not himself.

'Hey, boys!' Mary greeted energetically as she did every day. 'What's that about finding someone nice, Sammy?'

'Dean made a new friend!'

'I didn't say that!' Dean protested quickly, 'but you're right. I made a new friend!'

'You said he was Alfie's brother,' Sam added. 'How do you know he's Alfie's brother?'

'Because my new friend told me,' Dean boasted. 'He says he has a brother called Samandriel who's middle name is Alfie and when I told him about you he knew you were friends with Alfie and he knew what your hair looks like.'

'Alfie has a lot of brothers,' said Sam. 'Which one is your friend?'

'Castiel,' Dean replied.

'I haven't met him,' Sam frowned. 'One time I met Chuck though. He's in eighth grade. He gets nosebleeds a lot.'

'Cas said that he has a brother who gets nosebleeds a lot,' Dean nodded. 'And that he has three older brothers and one younger sister.

'Why does Chuck get nosebleeds a lot?' Mary asked, glancing back over her shoulder at the boys.

Dean shrugged and said, 'Cas didn't say.'

'Alfie didn't say either,' Sam added.

'Well at least you two know what to get this Chuck kid for his birthday if you ever have to get him something,' Mary said optimistically despite her question having an unknown answer. She had to explain her joke, because the boys didn't get it: 'tissues.'

The boys laughed and the mood stayed light for most of the rest of the journey. Mary and Sam both asked questions about Dean's new friend and he answered them excitedly; part of him was still convinced that the boy who had actually asked to meet up before class in the morning wasn't even real. But he was real because Dean still had the Hershey's wrapper he'd given him. It had been white chocolate, and Hershey's white chocolate was better than any other white chocolate out there in Dean's opinion.

Of course the dreaded but not new subject of why Dean was crying in the bathroom in the first place came up and he had to talk about what happened, about how he was just sitting there and talking to a boy who wanted to borrow a pencil and he was grabbed and beaten up while the other boy was "protected" from him and didn't even try to stop what want on.

'I'll be having a talk with the principal at your school,' Mary said seriously. 'As soon as we get home I'm going next door to borrow a phone and making the call. Actually, you know what? We're buying a phone It's about time we got one.'

She said the same thing at least once a week. They still didn't have a phone, and all the countless meetings with the principal were doing was causing the principal suffering because the scary lady kept yelling at him and he was too stupid to do anything about what she was yelling at him about.

But then something happened, and Dean's theory that things were going to start getting better suddenly seemed like it was coming true, because they stopped on the way home and they actually bought a phone with a man to install it following them home in his car.

And, even better, their dad had left that afternoon for a few days like he did once or twice a month to go see Bobby Singer, his partner in his mechanic practice, who lived allllll the way off in a whole other state millions and millions of miles away. So while his dad was millions, maybe even billions of miles away in South Dakota, Dean was safe from John, his father, yelling at him for getting beat up so loudly and so frighteningly that he almost cried. But he never cried anymore, because he knew that if he cried John would hit him across his knees or on his elbow and he would get bruises – bruises his mom would think he got from just playing rough, because sweet, sensitive John who brought home treats and showed his boys his work and let them help him would never, ever lay a hand on one of his children.

AND THERE WAS ICE CREAM FOR DESSERT AFTER THEY HAD MEATLOAF TONIGHT!

Could this day get any better?

No it could not.

No wait actually yes it could.

Because Dean's mom told him and Sam that they could both invite one friend over on Saturday afternoon to play for a few hours if they wanted to since John was away and Dean was gonna invite Cas tomorrow. Usually he invited Charlie but only if his dad was away, but this weekend Charlie was going away with her parents somewhere so it was perfect timing to have his new friend over and be like everyone else for once because he had more than one friend.

OH OH OH!

AND CHRISTMAS WAS IN TEN DAYS AFTER TOMORROW! SO THEY WERE HAVING SCHOOL HOLIDAYS SOON!

This was the best day of Dean's entire life. Every year on December 13th he was going to have the best day ever for the rest of his entire life. Even when he was grown up and old. Every year, December 13th, he was going to have the best day with fun and _snow_ , because there was snow outside and it was falling and he and Sam got to play in it for a while before dinner while a man set up their phone line.

Friday at school was good too, because Castiel was waiting for him right where he said he'd be. In the boy's bathroom, and this morning he'd brought a small plastic container full of dry Cocoa Krispie's cereal which was Dean's favorite cereal but he only got to have it on weekends.

'So did your mom call the principal like you said she probably would?' Castiel asked once they'd gotten general greetings over with, as they munched on dry cereal in their stall.

'Yup,' Dean nodded. 'They're meeting after school to day so Sam and I have to stay behind and wait. And she got a phone.'

'She got one? Really?'

'Yeah, and even the man who installed it said it's about time and that most people got phones like ten years ago!'

'Well it's true. They did. My parents had a phone since before I was even born. I think they got it when my brother Balthasar was a baby because he did a lot of stupid dangerous things like rolling off of stuff onto the floor. That's what my mom said anyway. But my dad said they got it when a lot of us started being born so he could sell us all for money fast if he wanted.'

'You can sell people for money?' Dean asked in shock.

'My dad says so,' Castiel nodded. 'And he says he thinks about doing it a lot so my mom yells at him and he yells at her and then he yells at us and then he drinks and goes away to his boyfriend's house.'

Dean frowned for a moment, assuming he'd misheard.

'Your dad has a boyfriend?'

'Yeah,' Castiel nodded. 'He lives on the other side of the city with his weird daughter Amara. We're not allowed to talk about that at home or to other people because everyone is supposed to think he and mom are married and happy. But I don't care, he yells and then bribes us with chocolate and that's stupid so I'm going to say whatever I want. My older brothers call it freewill. So I've got freewill.'

'My dad sucks too,' Dean replied sympathetically. 'He acts so nice all the time but then he gets so mean. He's never mean to Sam, but he is to me and he yells at me and he hits me and pinches me sometimes. My mom doesn't even know. I've never even met anyone with a nice dad before except my friend Charlie, and every other person I've met has a really bad dad. So I don't think people should become dads anymore.'

'But then there would be no more people and everyone in the world would die,' Castiel pointed out.

'Not if they found a way to make it all moms,' Dean justified. 'If there's other people like Charlie who like girls, then they can all go together and they can find a way to have babies together.'

'But you need men for that,' Castiel insisted. 'My mom told me and my older brothers that. But not my younger or my sister because they're too young.'

'But if they could _find a way_ ,' Dean groaned. 'Like with … medicine or something. Or science.'

'Maybe …' Castiel allowed. 'Because moms are the best.'

'Yeah, they are,' Dean agreed. 'Oh, and mine wants me to ask a friend over to my house on Saturday and Charlie is going away this weekend and I have no other friends except you so … I thought I'd ask. You don't _have_ to come. But we have a really big garden and it snowed yesterday and today and it didn't even melt like it usually does so if it snows more today and tomorrow we could build a dad-snowman and then push it over.'

'We could put a beer bottle in its hand for my dad,' Castiel added.

'And we could put a tool in its other hand for mine. He's a mechanic and he's away this weekend. Wait, so does that mean you want to come?'

'Sure,' Castiel nodded eagerly. 'I don't have anything to do this weekend. Two of my brothers are going to guitar lessons on Saturday but I don't have a guitar yet so I can't go with them. And my sister is going to a birthday party, and my oldest brother is going to his friend's house and I don't know what Alfie's doing. So I'm free. It's your lucky day.'

'It was my lucky day yesterday, too,' Dean said proudly. 'We had meatloaf and ice cream and played in the snow, and I met you.'

'That sounds like a good day,' Castiel grinned.

'It was. So I'm celebrating it from now on. And I'll have meatloaf and ice cream on December thirteenth every year.'

'I will too,' Castiel decided, 'because that's the day you met me and I met you.'

'So you're gonna learn how to play the guitar?' Dean asked, changing the subject completely.

'Yup,' Castiel said proudly. 'My dad was in a band before we were born and I think that's really cool even if he's mean now, and I want to be in a band too because when he tells us stories when he's in a good mood it sounds like fun.'

'Lucky,' Dean frowned. 'I want to play guitar too. Like all the people on my dad's classic rock tapes he lets me listen to all the time.'

'You should ask for lessons and we could go together!' Castiel said excitedly. 'For Christmas or your birthday.'

'I'll ask for my birthday,' Dean reasoned. 'Because we already have out tree up and there's already a really big present under it with my name on it and I don't want to ask for anything else that's expensive because my dad's job isn't that good. He's self-employed with one work partner so we don't get a lot of expensive stuff so we always have money for emergencies saved like when I was four and our house almost burned down because a candle fell over in my brother's nursery.'

'Oh,' Castiel frowned. 'Was everything okay?'

'One room got damaged but everything else was okay,' Dean confirmed. 'And we used savings to fix the house I think. So I'll ask for a guitar for my birthday now to give my parents time to save for that for my birthday. I don't think they'll be shocked because I always say I want to play instruments like the people on the tapes. One time me and Sam made drums and a guitar, the drums were plastic mixing bowls and wooden spooks and the guitar was a cereal box with a hole in it and rubber bands and a a piece of cardboard for the long part. It didn't do anything it just looked like the long part of a guitar.'

'It's called a neck,' said Cas.

'Then guitars have reaaaaally long necks like giraffes,' said Dean.

They continued on the subject of guitars for a while and Cas told Dean a few of the stories he'd heard from his dad before the bell rang, and then on the way to class, where he sat next to Dean again, but the teacher again tried to move him.

' _Please_ ,' Castiel begged. 'There's a cold spot in my old seat and last night I kept sneezing and my mom tried to keep me home today!'

It didn't look very much like the teacher believed him. But he was allowed to stay where he was now sitting. He and Dean high fived when the teacher wasn't looking, which earned Dean a funny look from Charlie, who he explained to through a note he scribbled quickly while the teacher talked. They passed several more notes back and forth talking about it until break, when Charlie went over to Cas and introduced herself at once, and suddenly Dean's only two friends in the world were becoming friends and everything was going well.

At recess the three of them hung out together and Dean wasn't hidden inside in a bathroom stall like he often was, because these past few days Charlie had been busy, swept away by her video game fans who all wanted to come over to play. They were quiet and kept to themselves, and briefly a girl called Meg came over to talk to Cas but it was awkward and she walked away because apparently she and Cas liked each other for a while and they held hands and it was okay but then Cas kissed her on the lips and things got weird. They'd since broken up and were barely even on speaking terms as was apparent by her visit.

'Girls are weird, Charlie,' said Cas. 'Good _luck_.'

'Girls are pretty and have nice hair to play with,' Charlie shrugged. 'So it balances out.'

The three of them sat together at lunch, too, and Charlie brought Reece's Peanut Butter Cups with her that the three of them shared, and they basically stayed as a tight knit trio through the rest of the day, too, right up until they had to go home; Charlie's parents picked her up and Cas went off to his bus, and Dean went to sit with Sam while they waited for their mom to arrive just two minutes later and they talked about how for the first time in days Dean had gotten through the day without any incidents at all from anyone.

Dean was proud to announce to his mom that Cas was going to ask if he could come over on Saturday, and on a piece of paper written down and given to him at lunch, he had the phone number of the Novak household to arrange it, and Dean thanked his lucky stars because a few days earlier and there would have been no way for them to arrange it. But then he remembered that his mom already knew Cas's mom because Sam was friends with Alfie, but that made things even better because then Cas would be more likely to be allowed to come over.

'I'll call as soon as we get home,' Mary promised, 'you two be good and wait for me whole I talk to the principle now. I'll try not to be long.'

So Sam and Dean were left in an empty corridor that felt weirdly official for a corridor and they wandered up and down it, the school quiet but for the occasional creak or tap. They tried playing some games of eye spy as they passed the time, and they played a question and answer game where one person would ask a question and the other had to reply with the first thing that came into his head which led to a lot of weird answers that didn't make sense, and then the meeting was over and they were on their way home from school, Dean reminding his mom about making the phone call every second of the way there, while Sam sat quietly and contentedly knowing that his friend had come over before so there were no new arrangements to be made over new friendships.

Dean watching his mother go inside and hang up her coat was agonizing and watching her make coffee for herself and sandwiches for the boys even more so. Every second that ticked by when she was doing those things made time get farther and farther away from the time Dean had told Cas that he'd have his mom call Cas's mom as soon as they got home from school.

And then when Mary actually did grab the phone, Dean was suddenly petrified and stayed silent and still listening to her make the call trying to gauge whether it was going well or not.

'She'll drop Alfie _and_ Castiel off tomorrow at noon,' was the final consensus Mary told her nervous and eagerly awaiting son.

'Really?' Dean asked, grinning wide.

'Yes,' Mary promised. 'Now come on. Stop hugging your knees and go play with your brother.'

So go play with his brother Dean did, until tomorrow. He was so excited for his new friend to come over he doubted he would even sleep.

He did actually sleep, but he was up early the next morning eating breakfast while sitting by the door even though it was eight and they wouldn't arrive until twelve. And then he played with his toy soldiers by the door and then he played poker with Sam by the door using soldiers as chips (their dad had them playing poker since they were each five years old – a nice thing John sometimes did for Sam and used to do for Dean was when they weren't looking, go through the deck and pick out the cards they needed to win after peeking at their hand first.)

He and Sam did a drawing together while waiting by the door and they played snap by the door and then Dean bolted up and away from the door when the bell rang, to act like he hadn't actually been waiting all day by the door.

Sam dashed off to sit with Dean in the living room too, to act like he hadn't actually been keeping Dean company by the door because Dean had refused to move all day.

The boys crept back out when the moms were talking to wave at their friends from behind their mom's back, and then when the friend stepped inside and their mom left and there was some awkward lingering once Mary had greeted their guests nicely. And then she finally said 'I'll leave you boys to it. Lunch is in an hour, it'll be in the kitchen,' and walked off to do whatever moms tended to do when their kids were playing with their friends.

Sam and Alfie dashed off straight away to go play in Sam's room, and once they were gone, Castiel felt free to pull some comics out of his bag that he'd brought with him.

'I remembered you said you like comics so I brought some of mine,' Castiel said happily. 'We can look at them if you want.'

'You can show me in my room,' Dean suggested. 'I have comics too. We can compare and see if we have the same ones or not.'

'Okay,' Castiel said excitedly, so Dean led the way up to his room.

It was a pretty average room. The bed was against the wall and there were some posters his dad had given him of classic rock bands and some wrestlers up. The walls of his bedroom were painted blue with some stickers of stars and rockets, Dean saying 'I like space' by way of an explanation. He had a desk and a book shelf and a beanbag and a chest of drawers and a small radio with a slot for cassette tapes and box of those tapes, and the fake guitar Dean had told Cas about was on top of his book shelf.

'Don't trip over the toy cars,' Dean advised, pointing them out on the floor. 'You can sit on my beanbag. I'll sit on the chair.'

'Cool beanbag!' Castiel grinned. 'I want one but I don't have one. I have an inflatable pool chair in my room though. It even has a cup holder. I like your walls and your bed sheets and your floor and your beanbag and stuff. Is blue your favorite color?'

'Yes,' Dean said, nodding. 'It's one of them. I like all the blues and all the purples and all the turquoises. But my dad only lets me have blue stuff. He lets Sam have whatever colors he wants though. But I don't mind because blue is nice. Sometimes I wish I had blue eyes like yours so I could look at them in the mirror.'

'But green like yours is good!' Castiel objected. 'It's like … grass on a really really sunny day where you get ice cream and go to the park and people with dogs let you pet their dogs if they pass by and you get to play games with your friends while you run around.'

'No one ever put it like that before,' Dean frowned, fishing out his box of comics from the bottom shelf of his book shelf.

'They should,' Castiel frowned. 'I love green. My bedroom pool chair is green. And so is my pet frog.'

'You have a _pet frog_?'

'I got him for my birthday last year,' Cas nodded. 'His name is Cricket because when he croaks he sounds like crickets. You should come over to my house and meet him. He's really friendly and he likes to be held.'

'How do you hold him?'

'Just in the palm of your hand,' Castiel shrugged. 'Look, I'll show you.'

Castiel grabbed hold of Dean's hand and then reached to the floor and picked up a toy car which he balanced on his open palm. Then he took Dean's index finger from his opposite hand and made some light strokes on top of the car.

'Like that.'

'But what if he jumps away?' Dean asked.

'He won't,' Cas promised. 'He's trained really well. He'll only jump away if he doesn't like you.'

'What if he doesn't like me?'

'He will,' Cas insisted. 'His skin matches your eyes so he has to.'

'I hope so,' Dean muttered.

'We should ask our moms if you can come to my house when my mom is picking me up,' Castiel suggested.

Dean nodded.

'That's a plan. So what comics do you have?'

They got down to comic business. It turned out that Dean had a lot of comic Cas wanted but hadn't been able to buy at the time he saw them, so Dean let him read some now and let him take some home and he'd give them back on Monday at school. In turn, Cas leant Dean some to read which he would also return.

When they were done with comics, they moved on to play with some of Dean's toy cars. He had attached strings to some of them so using those strings they dragged them back and forth across the ground in a race, always keeping an eye on the time so they could go down for lunch when it was time, and after lunch they went outside to build that snowman they'd talked about except it was only ten inches tall because it had barely snowed and it was already melting, the ground dotted with white patches and wet spots.

Sam and Alfie were outside too, making lumpy shapes from the snow each resembling a small snowman, and then the four of them made some slushy snowballs together to throw at the house and whoever got the ball highest on the wall won. Dean was the best at throwing because sometimes his dad took him to play baseball and he pitched as well as batted, so he won.

All four of them continued to play together as they went back inside to warm up with some hot chocolate and more comic books; neither Sam nor Alfie had any comics of their own but Dean and Cas were willing to share. They were still reading and talking about the comics when Alfie and Cas's mom came to pick them up and when she did Cas asked about Dean coming over, so they set up a date for the same time next week, and Sam could come over too to play with Alfie.

'I'll tell Cricket about you,' Castiel promised Dean before he left.

'Who's Cricket?' Mary asked, once the door had closed behind them.

'His frog,' Dean replied.

'He has a frog?'

'Yep,' Dean grinned. 'Can I go to my room now? I want to read more of the comics he leant me.'

'Go ahead,' Mary nodded, gesturing the stairs.

'Can I come too?' Sam asked.

'Sure,' Dean nodded eagerly. 'Come on. I have to read them by Monday and I want to read them twice.'

The two boys dashed upstairs together and Mary watched them go, happy that _both_ of her boys finally seemed happier than usual and had friends they weren't afraid to invite over to the house like Dean was frequently wary to do with his friend Charlie, who Mary personally liked, but John not so much.

Mary hoped that this would last and that Dean would finally stop being afraid of making new friends, because he looked happier than she'd seen him in weeks, and even Sam seemed to have lit up to see his big brother so happy and carefree.


	3. Chapter 3: 7th Grade

Loft or basement, basement or loft. Loft was Cas and Alfie's room and it was bright and fun and spacious, but basement was Chuck and Gabriel's room that they were very proud of because it had a couch and they liked to show off and it was dark and brought about a feeling of independence and maturity because it was apart from everyone else.

'Well … which room is hotter?' Dean asked. It was an aspect he'd never had to think about in the approximate year he'd been visiting. But it mattered now.

'Why does that matter?' Cas asked, frowning at his friend and shifting the weight of the guitar on his back so it balanced out more easily.

'The meatloaf will stay warm longer in the warmer room,' Dean shrugged.

Cas looked down at the plastic container in his hand. It was the first anniversary and therefore first celebration of the day Dean had declared the best day of his life, and they were just back from a guitar lesson which had taken place straight after school. Cas's mom had dropped them off there and they'd walked back to Cas's place from there because the lessons took place at the instructor's house just a few blocks away, and near his house was a diner that let you stop in and take food home as long as you brought your own containers, and that's just what they did to make sure they had meatloaf like Dean had had on this day a year ago.

'Heat rises,' said Cas.

'So your room.'

'But the basement has no windows.'

'Okay, so the basement.'

'But the basement is underground and the ground is frosty.'

'So … the loft?'

'But we don't know if the frosty thing matters because it's a room and it's just like an underground chamber.'

'So … what? Where are we going? Pick. I'm starving.'

'Cricket is in the loft. We can play with him later.'

'Loft,' Dean decided, already starting determinedly towards the stairs, leading the way towards his friend's room as if it was his own, and at times it practically was; Dean couldn't count the amount of sleepovers he'd had here, staying in Alife's bed while Alfie and Sam camped it out in a small tent set up in Sam's bedroom. Occasionally they'd swap, but Dean liked Cas's place best because he didn't wake up to Cas shoving him and yelling at him for accidentally kicking him in the face in the night while sleeping in close quarters in the tent. Anyway, he and Cas were getting too big for the tent now. They were almost thirteen, and Sam and Alfie were still pretty young and super super _super_ short. Dean could practically use Sam's head as a desk to do his homework on and Sam didn't even have to crouch down. Dean was gonna grow up to be tall, he just knew it. Like six and a half feet tall or something. And Sam was going to be short forever.

They dumped their guitars against the wall near their schoolbags which Cas's mom had taken from them when they were heading off to their bi-weekly guitar lesson and sat down on Cas's bed, backs against the brown wooden wall. They cracked open their containers and Cas, the one who was closest, grabbed the forks from his bedside table. He'd already gotten everything ready; they were going to eat meat loaf, practice guitar alone, play some video games, practice guitar with Chuck and Gabriel and then go over to Dean's and have pizza and watch a movie and Cas would spend the night and on Saturday they'd spend the day together until evening too, until shortly after their guitar lesson that afternoon.

'So how much have you got saved as of right now?' Dean asked as he stabbed into his meatloaf with his fork and kicked off his shoes, ready to curl his legs under himself, a thing he liked to do when sitting on Cas's bed because it was comfortable.

Castiel frowned and had to think for a moment. He seemed to be counting up in him head for a moment and then he grinned.

'After my birthday and Christmas I'll have over two hundred. You?'

'After Christmas about the same. I used a calculator and did the math and added up all the five dollars' I get in a year and I should have almost three hundred but I guess I spent a lot of my allowance on other stuff.'

'Yeah, me too,' Castiel said, chewing his lip. 'Maybe we shouldn't have bought all that candy.'

'Or those games.'

'And we could have laid off the ice cream.'

'But we'll still have enough for the electric,' Dean said optimistically. 'We should have it before the new year.'

This year, their Christmas and birthday gifts to each other would be a shared electric guitar they'd both been saving up all year for to buy. Gabriel had won one in a raffle – a _stupid one dollar per ticked raffle_ – and sure, he shared it, but they wanted one that didn't have to be spread around five people. Yup, five, because now Charlie had taken up the guitar too. _And_ she already knew how to play the piano!

The piano was the next venture the guys were getting into. There was an electric keyboard Chuck and Gabriel were saving for – second hand, two hundred dollars. But they were even less responsible with their money than Dean and Cas were. The goal was, inevitably, to learn enough instruments to start a _band_ and be super cool as heck – there was this one guy who could play the guitar and sing and everyone in school loved him. Sooo if Dean, Cas, Chuck, Gabriel and Charlie managed to get enough instruments, it was logical that they could at least talk about staring their band by the time they all joined Chuck in high school. It gave them a solid two years to get ready.

'And then we can play all those solos and stuff from the songs we listen to,' Castiel said with a boisterous and slightly smug grin. 'Or we can play them and they'll sound better. And they'll be easier to play because the neck of the guitar we're getting is thinner.'

'Did you hear me play part of the solo for Paranoid today?' Dean asked eagerly, a big grin spreading over his face.

'Yup. You were good.'

'Almost as good as you are at the starting riff in Moneytalks.'

'It'll sound so good on the electric guitar. We just need to buy a good _amp_ for it. The practice amp doesn't seem the same.'

'Until we get a good one we can borrow Gabriel's.'

'Yeah. Exactly. He can use our small one when we get it and we can take turns with the amps.'

They fell silent as they continued to eat, satisfied in their plans, gazing simply around the room as they often did since it seemed to change every other day. Alfie had this thing where he moved everything in his side of the room around a lot, and he often got random new things from who knew where that he liked to put on display. He was also working on making a picture on the wall out of candy wrappers, which was growing pretty well. It was very abstract and you could see a lot of dried glue but that was fun to look at, too.

As he ate, Dean turned his attention to Cricket on the window sill in his little tank, right by the desk which was littered with food wrappers, stray pages, pages with lyrics and chords, books and comics and one random, very furry looking fork that looked as though it had been there since the dawn of time. It was sitting on top of a sock, a stay sock, a sickly looking yellow in color that neither Cas nor Alfie had claimed to own, so it must have belonged to someone else. Either way it had been sitting there under the furry fork for months. The fork had been found down the side of Cas's bed and he'd just sort of … left it for … whatever. He wasn't planning on touching it again.

'Maybe you could throw the fork out the window,' Dean suggested suddenly as he stared at it.

'The sock too,' Cas added. 'I'll put the fork in the sock. Or you can since it was your idea.'

'I'm not touching the fork.'

' _I'm_ not touching the fork.'

'Have you got gloves?'

'No.'

'I have. But I'm not letting them touch the fork. What if you pick the fork up with the sock and then turn the sock inside out over the fork?'

'You can. I'm not touching the sock.'

' _I'm_ not touching the sock.'

They sighed mutually. They wished it was the first time they'd had the conversation. Hell, they wished it was the first time they'd had that exact conversation with the exact same sock and fork and window idea.

'Maybe we can get Alfie to do it,' said Cas.

He said that every time.

They never asked Alfie.

Guitar practice followed meatloaf. Their containers and forks would probably sit in the floor for several days until they were almost as moldy as the sock they refused to touch. Or maybe they'd accidentally get covered by laundry and be hidden even longer and get as furry as that fork. So then they'd have three furry forks. Practically an army of furry forks. Ew.

Practice started off pretty well with tuning and practicing chords each one of them found difficult. Dean was having trouble with F and he'd gotten that chord six months ago. Cas had almost mastered it, but Cas had bigger hands. Yet Cas sometimes struggled with the speed of changing into F or into other weird chords like B7 – it wasn't quite as weird as F but when he wasn't looking he got his fingers jumbled. Chords that had fingers on the first fret were always harder anyway because the strings were tighter up there.

They played through a couple of simple four chord songs and they were mostly in time with each other. The chords were literally the exact same in all of the songs, but it was the timing and strumming that was different, or the frequency of change at times. The simple four chord songs were easy and it was always surprising to find out how many songs just used a simple G D Em C chord progression, maybe with an occasional A or Am thrown in coming up to the bridge.

And then the inevitable happened. It happened at least once a week.

Dean dropped his pic into the hole in his guitar which resulted in the two of them trying to reach in with their hands, tentative to do so too much in case they damaged the strings so as usual Dean had to shake the guitar over his head until the pic fell out and either landed on his face or just fell somewhere on him which would cause a five minute search to find the pic which was probably literally right there where Dean was sitting.

The chord was on Dean's leg when they found it. And so they continued, attempting to play through some songs with more chords, and then each of them branched off into practicing what they needed, Dean with his F chord and Cas with his B7 and his progression until they were satisfied with their practice of those, beginning to see improvement, so they went on to practice what they knew of some riffs and guitar solos. Dean spent some time learning more of the solo in Paranoid, which was always a slow process because he sucked at reading tabs. He always had to take his time to figure out those tabs and then memorize them so he didn't have to look at them much unless he forgot a part or something, and even when he forgot he preferred to listen to the song and experiment with things until he figured out the forgotten part on his own.

The two of them were a pretty good team when it came down to it, because what one sucked at the other seemed to thrive in and so they were able to help each other. Cas, good at reading tabs, called out tabs. And Dean, very fast at chord progression, helped Cas with shaping his hand to the shape of chords he was slow at moving to off of the guitar so his hand memorized the shape and could automatically do it on the guitar, too. Cas tried to show Dean where exactly on his finger the first two strings should dig into when playing F, if he couldn't barre the chord which Dean had given up on doing a month ago. Now the high E string could ring out under Cas's guidance, but whatever Dean was doing, he always seemed to mute the B string somehow.

'Try to adjust your hand,' Cas encouraged him.

'Every time I do the other strings get messed up!' Dean complained, the chord frustrating him. 'I hate F. I never want to play F.'

'You _have_ to play F.'

'Get me the folder of Christmas songs,' Dean sulked. 'I want to play some of those. They're easier.'

They'd gotten a folder filled with Christmas songs and their chords today since it was coming up to the holiday season. Rocking around the Christmas tree was fun to play as they tried to mimic their guitar teacher's earlier strums and pauses from memory.

A half hour later, they were in sync and able to sing as they played. Trust a Christmas song to give them the ability to do that for the first time in almost a year of lessons.

'December thirteenth, nineteen ninety, we meet,' Castiel declared dramatically. 'December thirteenth nineteen ninety one, we're ready to play in a band together.'

'Told you this date was great,' Dean grinned at him. 'But I don't think we're ready to play in a band. We were able to get through it but that doesn't mean we were good.'

' _I_ was good. You sucked.'

'Oh, you're practicing for opposite day!'

'Shut up!'

'That means talk more!'

'Talk more!'

'You're done practicing?'

Cas poked Dean in the ribs with the top of the neck of his guitar and Dean grinned a naughty grin at him. Cas stuck out his tongue and started playing the F chord over and over to annoy Dean, so Dean stuck his fingers in his ears and started saying 'LA LA LA LA LA LA' loudly to cover up the noise, so Cas kept playing louder and louder and louder. This went on for some time until they abruptly stopped when Alfie arrived to get something from under his bed and find out what all the noise was about.

Their evening ended up going as planned with pizza and a Batman movie – Cas wanted Superman, but he lost the game of rock, paper, scissors.

'He always picks scissors, you know,' Sam had pointed out at the time.

'I'll remember that,' said Cas, staring sulkily at the smug Dean.

John and Mary, Dean's parents, spent most of their evening in the kitchen or upstairs, leaving Dean and Cas alone with Sam with them too; Sam would have stayed over with Alfie, but he'd done that last weekend so he didn't want to seem like he was trying to get away from home. Besides, he liked spending time with his brother and his brother's friend who was always nice and always seemed to have chocolate to bring over and share. When Sam had asked where all the chocolate came from, Cas had said something about his dad giving it to him, which made it seem like he had a nicer dad then Sam and Dean had. John still got angry frequently over little things, but not nearly as much as he used to. And he was definitely nicer to Dean these days, too.

In fact, ever since Dean met Cas, things seemed to have gotten considerably better for him. There was no more coming home with bruises or cuts and whenever Sam asked Cas or Charlie, he found out that they never hid away at lunch. Maybe it was just because middle school was better than elementary school, or maybe it really was Dean having a friend like Cas. Yes, it must have been, because it was when he was in his last year of elementary school that he seemed to stop getting beat up as much.

Dean had noticed it too and had figured it was because Cas was … normal. Not that Dean wasn't normal. It was that other people didn't see him as such. And once he got to middle school, he'd done everything he could to make sure he was never seen as abnormal. When he was young he had been more open about everything because he didn't realize the consequences it would cause. Now that he did, he made sure to keep all of that hidden. He still liked boys, he liked boys a lot but he liked girls too so he only ever let people see that part. Charlie didn't bother with pretending to like boys or to not like girls, and Dean noticed she did get taunted a little by some bratty girls at times but never beat up for it, and she didn't seem to care. And Cas, well, Cas was pretty well liked by people because they all thought he was pretty. And … Dean was well liked, because they thought _he_ was pretty.

It hadn't quite dawned on him yet that he and Cas were almost what you could call _popular_ in middle school, and that Charlie was like their wacky sidekick, and the three of them basically sort of … ruled.

It was weird how much things could change in a year.

It was weird how much things could change by making one new friend.

Weekends were no longer spent alone and hidden away with comics or tapes or over at Charlie's for gaming whenever she could fit him in among the many that flocked to her, they were spent _not_ alone in his room because Cas was there, or they were spent at Cas's surrounded by his brothers and his sister, or they were spent walking around the streets together, sometimes chaperoning Sam and Alfie with them. And Saturday afternoons were spent in guitar lessons – and this Saturday, Dean finally expressed his annoyance at the F chord and was given a glorious solution:

D chord.

On the fifth fret.

D CHORD ON THE FIFTH FRET!

Dean was _so_ gonna violently strum that at Cas later to get him back for earlier.

For the first time in over twenty four hours, Dean and Cas parted after their guitar lesson and went home separately, Dean very smug after finally mastering an F chord. He still wanted to practice the normal chord, but at least now he could play songs with Fs in them.

Dean practiced playing songs for an hour after his lesson and Sam watched for the last half hour of that in fascination and Dean even taught him how to play some of the easiest chords because Sam wanted a go at using the guitar just to see what it was like. He sucked, but he still looked proud of himself so Dean grinned at him encouragingly as Sam passed the guitar back and Dean put it away in its case and the two of them headed downstairs together to watch some cartoons on their TV – last year the phone had been a gateway to a whole new bunch of things and gadgets being bought, the TV being one of them. What would be really cool was a computer, but a pair of boys could only dream.

'A computer will help with playing guitar,' Dean had pointed out. 'I can look up songs and their chords.'

'Your guitar teacher gives you enough of those to get by,' Mary told him firmly. 'We already got you two a video cassette player.'

'A video cassette player doesn't have guitar chords on it.'

'Or games,' Sam pointed out.

'Play a board game,' John put in from behind his newspaper.

'But I always win,' Dean complained. 'It's boring.'

'Here's a thought,' John commented lightly, 'lose.'

'I'm too good at the games to lose.'

'Sam, get better and beat him.'

'I'm trying,' said Sam. 'Maybe if we got a computer we could get the internet and I could look up how to play better …'

'Go watch TV while I make dinner,' Mary instructed, ending the conversation.

'Need help?' Dean asked glumly.

'You can grab the frozen spring rolls out of the freezer.'

They always had something easy to cook in the oven or the microwave or something they could pick up elsewhere, because Mary didn't cook. She baked. One dish.

'I'm gonna learn to cook someday, mom,' Dean decided, doing as she asked. 'And I'll teach you.'

'Or maybe you can cook, and I'll just sit back and watch and not have to do anything,' Mary countered.

'And what if I make a band and get famous?'

'Then you'll be rich and can hire us a chef,' John requested.

'Okay,' Dean grinned. 'I'm gonna go watch TV with Sam now.'

'I'll call you two when it's ready,' said Mary. 'Or I'll join you and let the oven timer surprise us.'

Dean headed off to join Sam, and that was that.

If Dean looked at how things were a year ago they seemed vastly different even at home, although things probably hadn't changed that much. It was his attitude that had changed, his mindset, his mental state and his happiness, but he didn't know that. All he knew was that when he looked back there was a dark cloud looming over the past, and a rainbow hanging over the future except not a rainbow because he couldn't like rainbows or things would revert back to the way they were and he'd get beat up and be miserable again and he didn't want that to happen.

This year's Christmas holidays were even better than last year's. This year on Christmas day, Dean and Cas were able to dash out into the streets and meet halfway and jump around in celebration because they finally had the money for that guitar they wanted, whereas last year they were still new friends and hadn't seen each other until a few days after Christmas. Dean was so happy this Christmas that he kept dragging Sam around in a circle with him, spinning in his glee over and over until they fell down and then were ridiculed for it because they had to go get ready for Christmas dinner because some family – or rather, friends who were close as family – were coming over and would be joining them.

At Christmas dinner, Dean hardly shut up about how great his life was and about everything he was doing, where usually he had to be prodded to speak or he only spoke in reply to someone. But now he chatted away and he answered Ellen's questions about school and Bobby's questions about what songs he could play and Jo's inquiries about whether he could show her his guitar.

And when Dean wasn't talking, he was listening to Sam tell them all about what he was up to, or Jo talk about what she was doing in her school and with her friends where she lived in Nevada. She had this friend called Ash who seemed weird. But good weird. And it was an all around good time.

When the stores opened up again a few days after Christmas, Dean and Cas were the first ones out and the first ones into the music store to buy that guitar as soon as it opened. They treated it as though sacred as they carried it back to Cas's, bringing it there first because they wanted to show it off in front of his family and because their arrangement was that they'd alternate weeks in having it and Cas got to go first because it had just been his birthday. He was thirteen, and a teenager, and he was very proud of that fact.

'Ah, to be thirteen again,' Balthasar, the oldest, cooed in the fake British accent he'd been doing since he started high school two years ago. The accent was apparently a device to make himself seem more interesting and appeal to girls. And it worked. Balthasar was talking about a new girl every week. Sometimes two or three within a week. And he seemed to be a fond of each as he was of the last, and declared it wasn't his fault they all flocked to him like sheep to a wise man..

'Don't you mean shepherd?' Gabriel asked him. 'Sheep to a shepherd?'

'Three wise men, angel,' Balthasar drawled in an accent which truly was enticing.

'That's _arch_ angel to you, _shepherd_.'

'All that and you've never even been to church,' Chuck said with a roll of his quite.

'Quiet killer doll,' Balthasar replied. 'This is between me and the winged one.'

'You do know Balthasar is an angel too, right?' Chuck pointed out, raising his eyebrows at the two of them.

Dean had found it hilarious when he found out that a family with children named after angels wasn't even religious.

'Mom just thought it'd be cool I guess,' Cas shrugged when Dean asked about the angel names thing.

So it turned out that guitar solos felt and sounded so much better on an electric guitar. Their amp was pretty cool too; it had a distortion effect and a volume knob and the distortion effect was controlled by a knob too and could be increased and decreased and messed around with. Dean almost died when he heard how good Paranoid sounded – not the solo he'd been working on, but the actual chords. The intro sounded just like the actual version when he played it. It was the song he played the best. Back in Black was the next best of his, and he hoped he could improve that too. With how well he hoped to play Back in Black and how well Cas played Moneytalks, they could do AC/DC covers. Or with how well he played Paranoid and Gabriel played Iron Man, they could do Black Sabbath ones. But Gabriel was practically an expert at Paint it Black, so they'd have to work that in, and Chuck was great at Jessie's Girl, y'know, that song by Rick Springfield who looked weirdly like that Vince Vincente guy who was popular in the 80s, and then there was Charlie who liked a different kind of music all together they'd have to honor …

Okay. Maybe they shouldn't be a band covering a specific band, but more like a cover band in general. All they needed was more instruments and the skills to play them. A drum set (easy to self teach, right?) and a bass (practically a guitar?) once Chuck and Gabriel got that keyboard.

Now that there were two electrics and five acoustics in the mix and Charlie was planning on chipping in for the keyboard (she wasn't allowed to take her dad's out of her living room) they were well on the path to greatness. They still didn't know if they were actually any good or if they were delusional in thinking so, or if any of them could even sing although they tried, but their plan was in place and even more solidified when a few days after the new electric guitar was among them, with Charlie chipping in they could get a keyboard and Charlie was able to increase her lessons.

'It's good that we'll all be able to play all of the instruments,' Charlie commented one day. 'That way if one of us dies or something we won't have to worry.'

'Gee, thanks Charlie,' Gabriel muttered sarcastically.

'It can happen,' Charlie pointed out. 'A crashing tour bus. Or a drug overdose. An insane fan.'

'A plane could crash into our tour bus,' Dean added.

'I'll be Sharon if you be Ozzy.'

'… They're married.'

'So? It's not like we know that much about them, just that they're married and she's his manager. She could be a lesbian.'

'I call Tony,' said Gabriel.

'No, _I'm_ Tony!' Chuck complained.

' _I'm_ Tony,' Cas corrected.

'What about Bill and Geezer?' Dean pouted. 'Or any of the singers they had after Ozzy?'

'Gabriel should be Geezer because with his haircut he looks like a geezer,' Chuck decided.

Gabriel stuck the sharpest point of his plectrum in Chuck's face. Chuck shoved him and the two began to shuffle around shoving each other in what was a mostly playful fashion.

'Teach me the difference between major and minor chords again on this thing,' Dean decided, while Cas laughed at Chuck and Gabriel and it became impossible for him to pay attention to leaning a new instrument while in that state.

As the year on, Dean stopped marveling in how great it was compared to … not the last year, all of that had been great, but the year before it all the way up to December. He stopped thinking about changes and comparisons. He accepted his new normal now that it had been over a year since it began and he just went along with it knowing that if he stayed within certain guidelines, he would get by. He stayed within his group at school of him and Cas and Charlie and many times Gabriel, but Gabriel was often busy with his friends from his grade. Yet he always made time to be with his friends who weren't just his in-school friends, but his out of school friends too.

At home, Dean stayed within boundaries he set for himself too. He never expressed interests in anything his father might find controversial. He talked a lot about what he did with his friends and he talked about his school work enough to make it seem like he actually cared about his school work and he made sure his report card was decent when he brought it home. He hung out with Sam and he helped him plan his ninth birthday party, and the two of the continued their mutual hints and pleas for a computer that didn't go unnoticed but got little to no response.

And then away from both home and school, he roamed the streets in a group of five with his friends, hitting up candy stores for junk and diners for pie, going to the arcade and wasting quarter after quarter on lost games, walking around the streets and talking about stuff and occasionally kicking a ball around, and saving for instruments and continuing to learn and practice music.

And with Cas, the two of them continued to basically do whatever they wanted and talk about weird stuff because that's pretty much how their relationship was. Dean and Castiel, the two boys that if you were around when they were having a conversation you'd either be grossed out, horrified or very, very confused. Their latest obsession, that had started thanks to one of Charlie's video games, was monster hunting and they liked to speculate about ideas for different monsters and how they'd all be killed, like chopping off a vampire's head or blowing a zombie's brains out.

'Everyone knows you kill vampires with a steak through the heart,' Anna, Cas's little sister, had scoffed when overhearing them one day in Cas's living room.

'The movies make you think that,' Cas insisted, 'but they're just to trick you.'

'Because the movies are all made by vampires,' Dean added. 'Vampires live around us just like ordinary humans. We just don't realize.'

'And that's how they get to you,' Castiel hissed ominously. 'They become friends with you, trick you into going home with them and … BOOM!'

And so Anna had screamed and run out of the room and Cas had gotten yelled at because 'SHE'S TEN YEARS OLD, CASTIEL! SHE STILL SLEEPS WITH THE LIGHTS DIMMED!'

'Well then … the vampires won't come for her because they know she'll see them?' Castiel offered meekly while Dean tried not to burst out laughing because it was always hilarious when Cas got yelled at.

'Room,' Cas's mom breathed like an angry warthog, 'Room. Now. And I expect you to give her an apology if she ever comes out from under her bed. And Dean, I'm so sorry you have to see him acting like this. I'm hoping you can be a good influence on him. _Room, Castiel!_ '

So Cas had gone with Dean following him and then Dean laughed and received a face full of pillow as Cas picked it up off of his bed and whacked him full on with it.

'Worth it,' said Dean.

'Lick my frog,' Cas snapped at him, probably the more innocent version of "suck my dick" which had yet to creep into their young and uncorrupted vocabulary. 'You? A good influence on _me_? Yeah, right.'

'Hey, I'm perfect. I've never gotten in trouble ... here.'

' _Here_ ,' Castiel stressed. 'Last week you covered your kitchen in … whatever that was.'

'I was trying to make a pie milkshake! It's not my fault I don't know how to use a blender. Neither does my mom or dad, I don't even know why we have one!'

'Pie and weird lumpy stuff. All over your wall and _my shirt_.'

'If it makes you feel better I ruined my favorite socks.'

'Because you're weird. You should wear _shoes_.'

'Not in my _house_! I don't need shoes in my house!'

'Well obviously you do.'

Dean paused for a moment. And then he blinked. And then eureka.

'Do you have a blender?'

'I think so, why?'

'Does anyone in this house know how to use it?'

'Get out of my house,' Castiel stated.

'What?'

' _Get out of my house_.'

'Bu –'

' _Out_.'

Castiel pushed, literally pushed, on Dean's back down all of the stairs until he was at the front door, and then he pushed him out it and closed it behind him. Dean stared blankly at the door for a moment before he started to walk away but before he reached the end of the driveway he felt Cas dash over and jump to his side, throw his arm around his neck giddily and flash five dollars in his hand.

'So pie and milkshakes?'

'Isn't that supposed to be going towards a bass?'

'… No?' Cas tried.

'I don't even care. Pie and milkshakes.'

It was a thing they'd discovered a month ago in June when it was hot and Dean was craving pie but they wanted milkshakes as something cold to cool them down. Pie with whipped cream went well with milkshakes in the small old-timey diner that they got most of their snacks from. It was like having pie with ice cream on the side except you could drink the ice cream. And of course, every now and then, they had cake instead of pie because Cas preferred cake and Dean found that completely insane.

'You only like pie so much because it's the only thing your mom knows how to make and you won't even give cake a chance!' Cas whined.

'I always give cake a chance, and it doesn't compare to pie _at all!_ '

'That's because you go into it thinking that. If you had cake with an _open mind_ you close-minded _bee sting …_ '

'I thought you liked bees.'

'Not when they _sting_.'

' _You're_ close minded because you won't let me try to make a milkshake out of pie in your house!'

'You're not messing up my house. I'll get blamed.'

'I'll take all responsibility!'

'I'll still get blamed. You and Sam, you guys are like … precious angels that my mom loves to come over. And we're all demons.'

'You're literally all named after angels.'

'And that's what's ironic.'

They had their weird fights and moments, those two did. No one else understood them. No one else could comprehend how one moment they'd be screaming at each other and the next they'd have their arms over each others' shoulders as the strolled merrily down the street, or how they'd burst out laughing in the middle of a heated argument, or how they'd call each other mean name after mean name until they realized the time and go 'so, see you tomorrow?' 'I'll bring cookies. My mom just bought some' and then they'd part on as good terms as any.

But it's not like it mattered. It was nobody's business but their own, and if people saw them as odd for it, so be it.


End file.
